Everyone turns to look at me. Faces I grew up with, people I’m just starting to know.
“You don’t live here anymore-”
“Hold your damn tongue, Tiberius. She’s a Sunshine Omega; it doesn’t matter where she goes,” my grandma snaps, “she’s always home here.”
“I want to hear what she’s got to say,” Marla snarls at the room.
No one dares contradict her.
I take a deep breath, then feel the steadying presence of my alphas around me.
“Sunshine has charm; Sully is part of this community. He fits here. You can’t just get rid of him because he made a mistake.”
“A year of thefts isn’t a mistake; it’s a problem.”
I hold my hands out. “I don’t know what the solution is, but you can’t just send him away. He belongs here. This is all he knows.”
My parents are watching me carefully. Too carefully. No doubt they are reading into this and coming up with something close to the truth.
“Sure, he’s a bit naughty, a little bit of a rebel, but this is his home. How can you just tell him to leave?”
My mum scowls at the floor. I try to ignore her.
“He did the wrong thing-”
“We’ve all done the wrong thing once or twice,” Devon says. “This is our community. We aren’t perfect, but we are us. Sofia is right.”
“We cannot allow him to run around unsupervised,” Betty counters. “It’s creating division in our community.”
I have the younger people on my side, but it will take a miracle to shift the older generation, and I’m out of miracles.
“Well, why don’t you just give him piles of things to steal and make it part of the town’s gimmick?” I say with heavy sarcasm.
Several people turn towards me.
“What? What was that?” Mum turns to her Pack Makers. “A mascot.”
“A sign from fate!” Kylie gasps, clapping her hands. “The V-Day gods have spoken.”
“Sully can be a Pack Maker,” Betty says with sudden enthusiasm
The four of them squeal and bounce a bit. The tension in the room evaporates, and everyone groans.
This might be worse than asking him to leave.
“I, umm, err,” I hold up a hand to interrupt and then, no. Just no, I’m not going there.
“Well, that settles it. Sully is officially the Pack Makers problem,” Marla said. “Now, I’m going home to listen to my favourite podcast.”
I can see a couple of people roll their eyes, but there is one alpha who looks nervously out of place and pushes his glasses up his nose. He’s young and must be fairly new to Sunshine Cove.
“How can you watch-”
Asher wraps her hand around his mouth and drags him back into the crowd, disappearing with him. I’m curious now what he was going to say, and I make a mental note to ask Asher who he is.
Marla pauses beside me. “Nice work, my apprentice.”
I snicker. “I learned from the best.”
